Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children aged five and under accessed programmes through children’s centres and family hubs in each English local authority area in the last 12 months.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The department does not routinely collect data on the number of children who are accessing programmes through children’s centres or family hubs. This data is held at a local level.
Local authorities have statutory duties under Part 1 of the Childcare Act 2006 to facilitate access to early childhood services and encourage parents to take advantage of them. The act, and the duties, are available to view here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/21/part/1.
Local authorities should be reviewing data on service use and outcomes to ensure that they are meeting these duties and that their commissioning decisions are informed by evidence of the impact of their local services.
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many unfilled places there were in primary schools in 2016-17; and what proportion of the total number of school places that figure represents in each such area.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As of 1 May 2016, the total number of unfilled primary places in England was 461,065; the number of unfilled places as a percentage of total primary places was 9.7 per cent.
The capacity data are published on an annual basis, giving equivalent local authority and regional totals, through the SCAP tables. Further information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-capacity-academic-year-2015-to-2016.
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will set out which English local authorities have a total of five per cent or more surplus school places in (a) primary, (b) secondary and (c) all schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department collects information on the capacity of schools and the number of pupils on roll as part of the annual School Capacity (SCAP) survey. A school is identified as having surplus places if the capacity is higher than the number of pupils on roll.
The latest information on the number and percentage of surplus places at local authority level can be found in tables A2 and A3 of the ‘School Capacity: academic year 2015 to 2016’ release at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-capacity-academic-year-2015-to-2016.
An efficient system requires a degree of unfilled or surplus places at any point. Retaining a reasonable level of surplus places provides for parental choice and allows local authorities to manage shifting demand for places. A range of factors contributes to the level of surplus places held. For example, surplus places can be evidence of local authorities planning ahead of future need, as the increase in pupil numbers at primary level over recent years begins to move into secondary level. Unfilled places can also be attributed to the building of completely new schools, which fill up year by year, leaving space in the upper years.
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which (a) primary and (b) secondary school in each English education authority has the (i) lowest and (ii) highest proportion of children on free school meals.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Information about the proportion of pupils eligible for and claiming free school meals in each Local Authority is available for each school in the underlying data of the ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2015’[1] statistics. The highest and lowest rates in each local authority can be determined readily from these figures.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2015 - Please refer to file titled ‘Underlying data’ and open the file titled ‘SFR16_2015_Schools_Pupils_UD’. The highest and lowest rates of pupils eligible for and claiming free school meals can be determined based on the ‘LA name’, ‘School Name’, and ‘% of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals’ columns. To split into primary and secondary schools, use the ‘Phase-type grouping’ column.
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank primary schools in each London borough by the proportion of pupils with non-statutory special needs; and what type each such school is.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The proportion and number of children with non-statutory special needs, identified as ‘SEN support’ in each primary and secondary school, including type of school in London can be calculated from the underlying data of the publication Special educational needs in England: January 2015. This publication can be found on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2015
We have no plans to rank this data.
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank secondary schools in each London borough by the proportion of pupils with non-statutory special needs; and what type each such school is.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The proportion and number of children with non-statutory special needs, identified as ‘SEN support’ in each primary and secondary school, including type of school in London can be calculated from the underlying data of the publication Special educational needs in England: January 2015. This publication can be found on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2015
We have no plans to rank this data.
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank each secondary school in each London borough by the proportion of children who are eligible for the purpose of determining the pupil premium; and what type each such school is.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Information on the number of pupils eligible for the pupil premium is available in the final school level pupil premium allocations, which are published on the department’s website.[1] These figures can be used with the total number of pupils in each school (information which can also be found in the same publication) to calculate the proportion eligible for the pupil premium.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2015-to-2016-allocations - please click on ‘Pupil premium final allocations 2015 to 2016 by school in England’
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank secondary schools in each London borough by the proportion of pupils who have English as an additional language; and what type each such school is.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Information on the number and proportion of number of pupils whose first language is known or believed to be other than English is available in the underlying data of the schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2015 statistics[1]. This data also contains information on the type and location of each school and it can be used to rank the schools.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2015 - click on Underlying Data, open file ‘SFR16_2015_Schools_Pupils’ and the information on English as an additional language is in column GB.
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank primary schools in each London borough by the proportion of children who are eligible for the purpose of determining the pupil premium; and what type each such school is.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Information on the number of pupils eligible for the pupil premium is available in the final school level pupil premium allocations, which are published on the department’s website.[1] These figures can be used with the total number of pupils in each school (information which can also be found in the same publication) to calculate the proportion eligible for the pupil premium.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2015-to-2016-allocations - please click on ‘Pupil premium final allocations 2015 to 2016 by school in England’
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank secondary schools in each London borough by the actual and percentage change in the number of children known to be eligible for and claiming free school meals in (a) 2010 and (b) 2015; and what type each such school is.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Information about the number and percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals and claiming them in each school in London can be found in the underlying data of the Schools, Pupils and their Characteristics statistics for 2010[1] and 2015[2] respectively. These data contain information about the type and phase of school and in which local authority they are located. Change in free school meal eligibility rates for schools can be calculated and ranked from this information.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2010 - click on underlying data and see columns EH and EI for free school meal data.
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2015 - click on underlying data, open the ‘SFR16_2015_Schools_Pupils’ file and the free school meal data is in columns EC and ED.